Forest production efficiency

Forest Products Laboratory have discovered a xylose-fermenting yeast (Candida tropicalis). Thus it now is possible to convert all wood sugars to ethyl alcohol with a combination of yeasts. Isolation of the specific enzymes and genetic engineering of the enzymes could dramatically improve the efficiency of this conversion. 

Landsberg, J. J. Waring, R. H. (1997). A generalised model of forest productivity using simplified concepts of radiation-use efficiency, carbon balance and partitioning. Forest Ecology and Management, 95, 209-28. 

If the utilitarian state could not see the real, existing forest for the (commercial) trees, if its view of its forests was abstract and partial, it was hardly unique in this respect. Some level of abstraction is necessary for virtually all forms of analysis, and it is not at all surprising that the abstractions of state officials should have reflected the paramount fiscal interests of their employer. The entry under forest" in Diderot s Encyclopedie is almost exclusively concerned with the utiliti publique of forest products and the taxes, revenues, and profits that they can be made to yield. The forest as a habitat disappears and is replaced by the forest as an economic resource to be managed efficiently and profitably. Here, fiscal and commercial logics coincide they are both resolutely fixed on the bottom line. 

Sherrard says, The yeast used for the actual fermentation was a pure strain culture of a Hungarian beer yeast. Saccharomyces cero-visise, which has been in use at the Forest Products Laboratory for several yearn and haB proved very efficient in the fermentation of sugars resulting from the hydrolysis of wood. 

Ensure environmental sustainability Increased agricultural productivity is enabled through the use of machinery and irrigation, which reduces the need to expand the quantity of land under cultivation, reducing pressure on the ecosystem substitution and improved efficiency reduces erosion, reduced soil fertility and desertification due to traditional fuel use encouragement of better natural resource management and reduced local pollution facilitates rural non-farm-based enterprise and processing of non-timber forest products. 

Stevens, W. C., Johnson, D. D. (1950). Tests to investigate the efficiency of various coatings and coverings applied to the backs of painted panels with a view to reducing distortions following changes in atmospheric conditions. London Forest Product Research Laboratory. 

Trocino s concept of total utilization of the raw material, Douglas-fir bark, to produce several salable products was good, and earned Bohemia the 1976 Environmental Award from the American Paper Institute and the American Forest Products Institute. Unfortunately a certain amount of solvent losses is inevitable. Thus, efficient solvent extraction and recovery of solvent to obtain the primary product in a 3% yield, based on bark, could only be expected to be cost effective if the product sold in the dollars per kilogram range, such as carnauba wax imported from Brazil or Mexico. Unrefined Douglas-fir wax is soft because of the presence of terpenes, unsaturated fats, etc., and is subject to discolorization by iron salts because of the presence of ferulate esters, which promote the formation of complexes. As in the case of the polyphenolic extractives from redwood and hemlock bark, the product end-use was not sufficiently unique to ultimately justify a price that would support production and operating costs, and generate a reasonable profit. 

The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae) enzymes are specific to six-carbon sugars, but wood and other forms of biomass also contain large quantities of pentose sugars, especially xylose in hardwoods. The pentoses are not fermentable to ethyl alcohol with conventional yeasts. However, researchers at the U.S.D.A. Forest Products Laboratory have discovered a xylose-fermenting yeast (Candida tropicalis). Thus it now is possible to convert all wood sugars to ethyl alcohol with a combination of yeasts. Isolation of the specific enzymes and genetic engineering of the enzymes could dramatically improve the efficiency of this conversion. 

Grubb and Meyer (1993) estimate the technical wind potential for Western Europe to be 17 280PJ/year, corresponding to 15% of the gross electric or theoretical potential (113 040 PJ/year). They exclude areas unsuitable for wind energy production, such as cities, forests and inaccessible mountains, as well as social, environmental and land-use constraints from the theoretical potential and estimate the technical potential. Only sites with an average wind speed above 6 m/s are included, assuming an efficiency factor of 0.3. 

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